XV
HAWKINS IN FLORIDA

A decade before Martin Frobisher had opened the north parts of the North American continent to Englishmen, John Hawkins had surveyed the southern tip at Florida, and upon his return had represented this fair and favoured region, then to indefinite bounds included among Spain’s American possessions, and in a corner of which France for more than a year had maintained a slender foothold, as ripe for England to venture in and colonize. His was the first account in detail of Florida by an Englishman, and it was the germ from which fruitage later developed in Raleigh’s schemes.

Hawkins’s were purely trading voyages, and he was a fighting trader, demanding the open market for his wares at the point of the sword when it was denied him by representatives of foreign governments. His wares, too, were more or less fought for. The most profitable of them were Negroes seized on the African coast and bartered into slavery in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main—along the north coast of South America. He was the first (or his father before him as some historians say) to bring the African slave trade into English commerce, and to plant Negro slavery in America. Discovery was only an incident in the pursuit of his trade. Yet what he accomplished in this direction was of no slight import, since it opened the way to others of loftier aims. While his fame is tarnished by the blotch of traffic in human beings (in his day, we must remember, deemed by the godly and godless alike as not an unrighteous traffic), it is enduring by virtue of heroic deeds, and his place is fairly with the great English captains of the sea who had part in the beginnings of America.

SR. John Hawkins.

John Hawkins, born in Plymouth in or about 1532, was the son and grandson of notable mariners, and so well born to the sea. His grandfather, John Hawkyns, had served in Henry the eighth’s navy; his father, William Hawkyns, shipbuilder and merchant, had been one of the principal sea-captains of the west parts of England, and was the first Englishman to carry on a trade with Brazil. Hakluyt informs us that William Hawkyns was “for his wisdome, valure [valour], experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed, and beloved of K. Henry the 8.” His Brazilian voyages comprised “three long and famous” ones, made in his own “tall and goodly shippe” of two hundred and fifty tons, the “Paul of Plymouth,” between the years 1530 and 1532. He sailed first to the coast of Guinea where he traded with the Negroes for elephants’ teeth and other commodities of the region, and thence crossed to Brazil, where he “used such discretion and behaved himself so wisely with those savage people that he grew into great familiarity and friendship with them.” His greatest exploit, or that which won him largest attention, seems to have been the bringing to England on a visit one of the kings of the country, leaving behind as a pledge of his safety and return a member of the ship’s company—Martin Cockeram, a Plymouth man. The savage monarch was brought over on the second voyage and his appearance created great astonishment in London and at court when he was presented to King Henry at Whitehall, as well it might. For, as Hakluyt describes, “in his cheekes were holes made according to their savage maner, and therein small bones were planted, standing an inch out from the said holes, which in his own Countrey were reputed for a great braverie. He had also another hole in his nether lip, wherein was set a precious stone about the bigness of a pease [pea]. All his apparel, behaviour, and jesture were very strange to the beholders.” He remained in London for nearly a year, and then, satiated with his entertainment, embarked for his home in Master Hawkins’s care, on the latter’s third voyage to Brazil. But it was his fate to sicken and die at sea. Thereat Master Hawkins was much troubled, fearing that the life of Cockeram would be forfeited. But when he arrived at port and told his story, the savages were “fully persuaded” that their prince had been honestly dealt with, and freely gave up the hostage. Cockeram returned with his captain none the worse for his sojourn here, and lived to spin, long years after, among his fellows at home in Plymouth, rare sailors’ yarns about the Simple Life among savages.

John Hawkins followed early in his father’s footsteps. His earliest voyages were made when quite a young man to the Canary Islands. How he came to engage in the slave trade between the African coast and the West Indies Hakluyt thus naïvely relates:

“Master John Haukins having made divers voyages to the Iles of the Canaries, and there by his good and upright dealing being growen in love and favour with the people, informed himselfe amongst them by diligent inquisition, of the state of the West India, whereof he had received some knowledge by the instructions of his father, but increased the same by the advertisements and reports of that people. And being amongst other particulars assured that Negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of Negroes might easily be had upon the coast of Guinea, resolved with himselfe to make triall thereof, and communicated that devise with his worshipfull friendes of London; namely with Sir Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, M. Gunson, his father in law [Benjamin Gonson, then treasurer of the navy], Sir Wm. Winter [also of the navy], M. Bromfield and others. All which persons liked so well of his intention, that they became liberall contributers and adventurers in the action.”

The first voyage of this enterprise was made in 1562–1563 with a fleet of three ships and a company of one hundred men. Sailing in October he touched first in his course at Teneriffe. Thence he passed down to the Sierra Leone Coast, where he stayed “some good time” and collected, “partly by the sword and partly by other meanes,” at least three hundred Negroes, whom he packed in his ships, besides “other merchandises which that countrey yieldeth.” With this “praye” (prey) he sailed over the “ocean sea” bound for Hispaniola—San Domingo. Arriving at the port of Isabella he there disposed of some of the English commodities he had brought out, and a part of his living freight, meanwhile alert, “trusting the Spaniards no further then [than] by his owne strength he was able still to master them.” Thence he went to Porto Plata, where he made his sales, while, as at Isabella, “standing alwaies [always] on his guard”; and lastly to Monte Christi, disposing there of the remainder of the Negroes. In these three ports he took by way of exchange “such quantitie of merchandise that he did not onely lade his owne 3 shippes with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantitie of pearles, but he freighted also two other hulkes with hides and other like commodities which he sent into Spaine.” Then he returned to England with “much gain to himselfe and the aforesayd venturers” as the outcome of this voyage. The two hulks sent to Spain were seized at Seville as smugglers, under the law of the country against unlicensed trading in the Spanish colonies, and their goods confiscated. These Hawkins valued at twenty thousand pounds. Notwithstanding their loss the balance of the profits remained large.

The second voyage, begun in 1564, was that in which Florida was visited. In this venture the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the Earl of Leicester, were foremost as investors. Four ships constituted the fleet. These were the “Jesus of Lubec,” as “admiral,” or flag-ship, a fine vessel of seven hundred tons belonging to the queen and lent by her; the “Solomon,” Hawkins’s flag-ship in the previous voyage; the “Tiger,” a bark of fifty tons; and the “Swallow,” a bark of thirty tons. The fleet were well supplied with ordnance, including several “faulcons of brasse”—small brass guns—and a plenty of small arms for the men. The company enlisted numbered one hundred and seventy in all.